


Re-Connecting

by 250DarkStarsandFearless



Series: An Element of Blank [1]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Cutting, Dissociation, Dubiously Consensual Blow Jobs, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, Healing Sex, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mildly Dubious Consent, Oral Sex, Self-Harm, Smut, Telepathic Bond, Violence-but-not-really, self-injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-21
Updated: 2018-02-28
Packaged: 2018-04-10 10:41:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4388672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/250DarkStarsandFearless/pseuds/250DarkStarsandFearless
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jim's struggled with depression and anxiety for years.  He can hide it -- until the dissociation kicks in, and he has to prove to himself that he's still real.</p><p>Thankfully he has Spock to provide a different kind of "intense stimulation" than he'd resorted to before...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It started out slowly this time, a buzzing under his skin that muted sensation, separating him from the world around him.  A harsh word from an admiral that became a series of numb patches on his fingers; a condescending look from an Ensign twice his age and itching for promotion that settled over his heart like a wet blanket over coals. He couldn't feel his feet as they hit the deck with each step, couldn't hear voices over the humming in his ears.

 _Not now, not now, not now..._ he whispered to himself, his own thoughts distant and detached.  He hadn't dissociated in months, hadn't felt like reality was drifting away from him in so long that he'd thought he'd finally been freed of it.

Not so.

The solution crawled along his skin in a sensation so sharp and cold he couldn't bear it, gasping as he imagined dragging a blade down the inside of his arm, up the inside of his thigh. He couldn't get in a fist-fight, not with his position as Captain, and the gym never had the right level of risk to bring him back, but knives were easily hidden and easily used, the marks covered by a dermal regenerator and a good night's sleep.

He gasped again, trembling, feeling his skin part and watching the blood well up in the wound through his mind's eye as he headed for his quarters, heart racing.

The doors parted --

\-- and he ran smack into a solid, cooler body that grabbed and steadied him, even as it's long fingers trembled against his upper arms.

"I cannot allow you to do this."

The words were strong, solid, and yet shaking, weak, hesitant, full of determination and fear in equal measures.

"Spock..."

"No, Jim."  He was pulled into the room and settled on the bed, his surroundings a blur save for the pale green skin and dark, worried eyes.  "Why are you doing this to me?"  The question slipped out on a breath, so quiet Jim was certain he wasn't supposed to hear.

 _Why do you torment me so?_   He heard in his mind.  

Right.  The bond.  He'd forgotten as he'd drifted away, been unaware of Spock's ability to pick up on his thoughts.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean..."

Cool hands caressed his face, and he leaned into one, grateful for the sensation, the ground, the connection to that which was real and whole and true.  Spock tensed before him, breathed, and something loosened around his heart, a band he hadn't felt constricting.

"Why do you need this, Jim?" The deep voice asked, rumbling around him like the roar of an earthquake muted to the purr of a kitten.  

"I'm not real."

"You are most certainly real, Ashaya," came the reply.

"No...No, I'm not.  I'm not real.  Nothing is real..."  He couldn't see Spock anymore, could barely feel the coolness of his long fingers across his face.

"You are real."

"I don't feel it, Spock.  Nothing feels real.  Cutting...cutting helps.  The pain, the  _feeling_..."

"Where?"

"What?"

"Where, Jim?  Where do you need to cut, to feel?"

"My left wrist, up to the elbow...left thigh, to the groin..."

He was laid back, he thought.  It was happening, but not to him, it existed, but it wasn't real, the sensations beyond his reception.

Something almost-warm slid along his arm, tracing the veins from the base of his wrist to the inside of his elbow, laving the tender skin with wetness and tingles of sensation.  He gasped, trying to focus his eyes on the dark head moving along his body, pulling his clothes away even as it kissed his arm.

He gasped, thrilling in the recognizable sensation, and shivered as the cool-warm mouth moved away, to nudge at the inside of his leg.

Where his pants had gone, he didn't know, but he didn't miss them as the odd temperature covered every millimeter of his skin, forcefully probing at the blood vessels and teasing lightly along the tendons.

Beneath him, he began to feel the bed pressing into his back, the softness of a pillow, the underlying vibration of the Enterprise running along every surface.  He sighed, his floating lethargy fading into something heavy and tangible and  _real_.

Fingers stroked along the 'living' places on his body as the rest of him came slowly awake, his cock reacting to the press of Spock's lips along it and the sucking pull of his mouth.  Each draw seemed to pull the distance out of Jim and release it, bringing him steadily back into the world he knew and to which he belonged, tying him back into reality.

His legs tensed, the left side of his body spasming with brief tremors of over-sensation as he came down Spock's throat, crashing back into his body with a vengeance, feeling it's overwhelming number of sensations screaming along his nerves.

He moaned, relaxed, and allowed himself to bask, discovering that he was still real, still connected.

"Yes, Jim.  You are real.  Sleep, now..."

He drifted off into an entirely different kind of un-reality, recovering physically from the wrenching orgasm he'd barely felt and the emotional turmoil of being disconnected.

And Spock curled up around him as he slept, wrapping his mind around his lover as he wrapped his arms around him, protecting him, sheltering him,  _connecting_ him to where he belonged.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally here, for all who requested it.

He felt it first sitting in the Captain's chair while Jim was in his ready room, taking a subspace call from someone in the Admiralty. Inconsequential, if it hadn't been so unusual; a numbness to his fingertips where they gripped his PADD, as though thick cotton separated his skin from the device. He set the PADD down on his knee, flexing the digits of his hands slowly, and the sensation passed.

A curious anomaly, he mused. Nothing of concern.

The second incident was so disorienting he nearly fell. Jim's vid-com with the Admiral had not gone well, but Spock could not avoid the necessity of spending the second half of Alpha shift in the labs. As he left, planning to meet up with Jim in the mess for dinner, he suddenly realized he could no longer feel his feet. It was as though he hung in space, the deck gone from beneath him between one moment and the next.

A hand caught him under the arm, and he could feel the things which existed below his ankles, but he couldn't hear the voice of the Ensign supporting him over the loud buzzing coming from somewhere above them. He pulled from the Ensign's grip, pressing both hands over his ears, realizing the sound came from within his own head.

The images started.

_Flashes, light-color-sound, ancient microfiche running past his eyes accompanied by technicolor soundtracks and light-shows._

_Punches thrown, fists connecting with his face, the red tinge of blood catching in the corner of an eyelid, clouding his vision. Glass shattering over his cheek. Adrenaline, pain, the undercurrent of knowledge that the remainder of the bottle could soon stab him in the chest, the next punch could drive his nasal bones into his brain._

No.

_Flashing swords, Sulu with katana drawn, spinning lazy circles. Clashing metal, dancing around each other, an illegal kick sending him to his knees as he blocked a downward slice. Laughter. Adrenaline, excitement, connection, the understanding that this was a friend, these were good times, the release of stress and tension a safe and healthy thing andNOTENOUGH_

no

_Flickers, thin sparkling lights caught on slivers of metal, slender streams of bright blood curving over the sides of his wrists, flowing idly along the swell of his thumb, the base of his pinkie finger. Blue eyes that looked back at his in the mirror, arm resting under the heated flow of water coming from the sink, golden skin stained purple-red-pink as the sanguine fluid rose from the wounds he'd carved into it and rinsed down the drain._

NO

Spock ripped himself from the bulkhead he was leaning on, leaving a terrified Ensign in his wake as he fled toward his cabin  _their cabin_ , desperate to save Jim before those blue eyes closed and never opened again.

The cabin was empty, the bathroom quiet and still.

"Spock, what the  _Hell_ \--?" He whirled, looking at McCoy. 

"Jim. Jim was here, Jim was--" No. Jim was not here. But the images were, roiling around in his mind, stuck behind his eyes, overlaying reality. "I am...he is...sending me things. Images. Sensations. They are...horrifying." It was deliberate, it must be, for him to see these things without them actually happening, so vivid and intense, so focused.  _Why?_

"What? Through your bond?"

"Yes, though," Spock moved to stand before the door of the cabin as it slid abruptly open again, admitting one James Kirk who was nearly vibrating with tension and wild emotion. Spock seized him by the shoulders, steadying the flushed body of his captain as the man nearly ran him down, initially oblivious to his presence, eyes looking at him without seeing him.

"I cannot allow you to do this," Spock said, aching, uncertain why his lover was wounding him in this a way, poisoning his mind with such terrible imagery, but determined to make it  _stop_.

"Spock..." the voice was questioning, cracked, a helpless whisper, and it broke Spock down even further. He did not understand.

"No, Jim," he said, leading the captain to their bed and pushing him gently onto it, crouching down to stare into those glazed, empty eyes. He flicked gaze back to McCoy, who gestured worriedly toward the com-panel, and then the door, silently inquiring. Spock inclined his head at the door, and the doctor slipped out, making an old Earth-gesture that meant "call me." Spock turned back to Jim. "Why are you doing this to me?" he asked, the hurt escaping in the breath as it ghosted across Jim's face.  _Why do you torment me so?_

Jim  _cringed_ in Spock's arms, shock-realization-horror- _no_ vibrating across their bond, wailing under Jim's skin.

"I'm sorry," he gasped. "I didn't mean--" and suddenly Spock understood.  Jim had not intended for Spock to experience these things. He had been so distressed he had thoroughly  _forgotten_ their bond, and Spock's connection to his own mind through it. He raised his hands, placing his long fingers on his lover's flushed cheeks, feeling Jim press his face into his palm as though it was the only solid thing around him.

Spock froze, mind racing, telepathically skimming the surface of the boiling vat that was Jim's emotional landscape. And understood.

He exhaled, feeling infinitely sad, but somehow relieved, and with the easing of his own pained anxiety something relaxed inside his lover as well.

"Why do you need this, Jim?" he asked, trying to be soothing, making his voice deep and soft.

"I'm not real." The whisper was plaintive, horrified, and the corner's of Spock's eyes  _burned_.

"You are most certainly real, Ashaya," he said, smoothing his thumbs along Jim's face, over the creases of pain.

"No, no, I'm not. I'm not real. Nothing is real--" his voice was growing rapid, panicked, heartbeat increasing, and Spock knew he was losing his captain again.

"You  _are_ real," he said again, firm, decisive.

"I don't feel it, Spock. Nothing feels real." A pause, then, "Cutting. Cutting helps. The pain, the  _feeling_ \--" The imagery that had inundated Spock's mind suddenly fell into place in this whole traumatic scenario, and the Vulcan set his jaw, determined to fix things.

"Where?" he demanded, as gently as he possibly could.

"...What?" the question was gasped, filled with confusion, incongruous to the lost horror of Jim's mind.

"Where, Jim," Spock tried again, slowly. "Where do you need to cut, to feel?" It took several moments, several long, despairing breaths, but the answer came.

"My left wrist...up to the elbow. Left thigh, to the groin." the words ended on a sigh as Jim shuddered, going limp, the visions spiraling through Spock's mind again. Furiously striving to see past them, the Vulcan lay his captain back on their bed, keeping his hands pressed into Jim's skin as he slowly removed his lover's clothes, drawing them off the golden body in slow pulls, making certain never to break contact with the distraught man.

When he had Jim exposed, laid out on the covers, Spock curled up beside him, taking Jim's arm in his grip and pressing a kiss to the palm. There was no response, but the Vulcan was undaunted, moving to draw patterns with his tongue up the wrist, probing into the dips and wells surrounding the muscles and tendons, smoothing over the blue-purple traces of arteries and veins.

Jim gasped, shivered, and something between them sparked, giving Spock hope.

He maintained contact with Jim as he continued the extended caress all across his lover's body, focusing on the specific places he remembered seeing Jim bleed in the awful images still dancing behind his eyes, until arousal finally made itself known in the captain's body.

Spock moved his mouth to suck on Jim's erection, skipping their usual tease-and-play routine when one was orally pleasuring the other, and focused entirely on gently giving the man every sensation possible; tongue stroking the head, lips sucking down the length, hands still pressing and roaming over every exposed bit of skin.

The sparks grew, became bright embers, and Jim orgasmed, seizing, the space of his mind filled with images of solid ground, strong embraces, the simple touch of Spock's fingers against his own.

Spock sighed in relief entirely his own, cleaning up the residue of Jim's release with his tongue.

"Yes, Jim," he said, moving to curl himself around his lover. "You are real. Sleep, now."

The golden body relaxed easily, finding its natural position snuggled into Spock's embrace as the Vulcan settled cool fingers onto the warm psi-points of his mate, using the umbrella of his mind to shelter the man he loved.


End file.
